Syslinux - Sep 2019 - Issue with ldlinux.c32 when symlinked on Windows

Hi,

I have successfully installed Debian using PXE boot and the local tftp
server of Qemu.
To do that I grab a copy of netboot.tar.gz for the amd64 architecture
from the debian website for Buster (10.1), extracted it then recreate
the symlink found:
- mklink ldlinux.c32 debian-installer\amd64\boot-screens\ldlinux.c32
- mklink pxelinux.0 debian-installer\amd64\pxelinux.0
- mklink /D pxelinux.cfg debian-installer\amd64\pxelinux.cfg

I start Qemu for Windows with the following command:

qemu-system-x86_64.exe -boot n -net
user,tftp=debian\netboot\text,bootfile=pxelinux.0 -net nic

I get the following error:

"Failed to load ldlinux.c32
Boot failed: press a key to retry, or wait for reset..."

As shown above, the file ldlinux.c32 can not be downloaded because it is
a symlink, if I do remove the symlink and copy the file in the tftp root
directory it works.
Why is it not working when the symlink is used?

Looking online didn't help me understanding this behavior.

I appriciate any help.

--
John Doe

> As shown above, the file ldlinux.c32 can not be downloaded because it is
> a symlink, if I do remove the symlink and copy the file in the tftp root
> directory it works.
 
 
Are you creating a symlink on NTFS?

One possible reason, perhaps, IIRC... PXELINUX does not understand 
symlinks on NTFS volumes. Having said that, I might be misremembering 
and/or confused about this.

Independently of using symlinks or not, ldlinux.c32 should be located 
in the same directory as the bootloader file (e.g. pxelinux.0). 
Unfortunately, Debian not always follows this basic advice, thus 
complicating the matter (unnecessarily).

Regards,
Ady.

Hi, thank you for your answer.


On 9/25/2019 6:26 PM, Ady Ady via Syslinux wrote:
>> As shown above, the file ldlinux.c32 can not be downloaded because it
is
>> a symlink, if I do remove the symlink and copy the file in the tftp
root
>> directory it works.
>
>
> Are you creating a symlink on NTFS?
>
Yes, I'm creating symlink on NTFS partition.
> One possible reason, perhaps, IIRC... PXELINUX does not understand
> symlinks on NTFS volumes. Having said that, I might be misremembering
> and/or confused about this.
>
Any chance that can be looked at and fixed up if pxelinux.0 can't handle
symlink on NTFS?

> Independently of using symlinks or not, ldlinux.c32 should be located
> in the same directory as the bootloader file (e.g. pxelinux.0).
> Unfortunately, Debian not always follows this basic advice, thus
> complicating the matter (unnecessarily).
>
Couldn't agree more.

I guess I will need to open an Debian-installer bug report on this.
Does the same hold true for other *.c32 files (libcom32.c32 libutil.c32
esamenu.c32)?

Other then pxelinux.0 and ldlinux.c32 that are to be in the same
directory, is there other things that should be corrected by Debian
(guideline best practices)?

In other words, what should be corrected in the Debian netboot.tar.gz
tarball.


I realy appriciate your help and any feedback you can give me.

--
John Doe